


i think i like dancing.

by peppermintcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2563853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintcas/pseuds/peppermintcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you know,” Dean says, conversationally, like they’re in the Impala, just talking, and not slow-dancing in the bunker, like this is an ordinary occurrence instead of what Dean has always dreamed of: a home. Someone to share it with. Cas. Sam. Kevin, Linda, Charlie, Jody, all alive and well. His family safe. “I used to dance. I was pretty good at it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think i like dancing.

“Cas.”

“Yes, Dean?”

“This isn’t my usual station.”

“No, it’s not.”

Music is winding its way from the radio; it fills the war room, the cavernous halls of the bunker, the bedrooms and kitchens and the garage and all the other rooms they haven’t discovered yet. It’s a soft song, Dean notes. It’s something Cas would like.

 _What did you bury_ , the voice croons, _before those hands pulled me from the earth?_

“What station is this, then?”

Cas consults the radio, tilts it back to squint at the screen. “Alternative?” he offers.

Dean laughs and crosses the room to take the radio from Castiel’s hands. “96.5,” he says, showing Cas where the numbers scroll across the glass. Cas is watching him. There is a smile on his face: a smile Dean has rarely seen before. It is gentle. Warm.

 _I knew that look, dear_ , the radio tells Dean. _Eyes always seeking…_

Dean puts the radio down on the table with a small _thunk_. Holds out a hand. “Well?” he says to Castiel’s puzzled look, to that little smile. He can still see it lingering in the corners of Cas’s eyes, the slight upturn of his mouth, as he grabs Cas’s hands; it grows, brighter and brighter, as Dean places one hand on Castiel’s waist and twines the other with Cas’s fingers, spins them out into the waiting space, the boards creaking under their feet as they twirl, slowly.

Dean remembers, now: he used to take ballroom dancing, back before the fire ripped up his life, burnt it to hazy memories. His mother had seen him dancing to her music, had signed him up for classes. He can feel the steps coming back to him, feels a laugh bubbling up in his throat, and he notices, not quite for the first time, that Castiel is shorter than him, just by an inch. Barely that. He meets Castiel’s eyes.

“Did you know,” Dean says, conversationally, like they’re in the Impala, just talking, and not slow-dancing in the bunker, like this is an ordinary occurrence instead of what Dean has always dreamed of: a home. Someone to share it with. Cas. Sam. Kevin, Linda, Charlie, Jody, all alive and well. His family safe. “I used to dance. I was pretty good at it.”

Castiel studies him. Dean still feels like a bug under a microscope, sometimes, when Cas looks at him like this: uncomfortable, like someone is rooting through his mind, interrogating him. But now, when he meets that gaze head-on, he feels nothing but peace.

It’s a strange feeling. Dean thinks he likes it.

“I didn’t know,” Cas says finally. His eyes crinkle at the edges, soft and slow like the tide. “You’re still good at this, though.” He looks at their clasped hands, their movements languid and relaxed. “I think I like dancing.”

Dean glances down, puts one foot forward, watches Castiel take a step back. He spins them, experimentally. Castiel laughs— a surprised sound— and Dean catches him as he nearly trips on an uneven floorboard. They steady each other, hands easy and warm, drawing each other in. Out. In. Out. “You’re not bad,” Dean allows. He dips Cas.

Castiel does the same to him, shifting his hands from Dean’s shoulder to the small of his back. It’s Dean’s turn to laugh, warm and with _love_. He loves Castiel. He loves him so much. It's never hit him as hard as it did now.

Castiel brings him back up, readjusting their hands instinctively, his hand braced on the exact spot that his handprint had marked years earlier. They move, taking their time, back to the radio, past it, around the table, back to the empty space cleared in front of the bookshelves.

 _Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips_ , the radio croons, _we should just kiss, like real people do._

“It took me everything to get here,” Castiel says, his voice achingly fond and soft and sad; when Dean looks up at him, surprised, Cas meets his gaze without hesitation. “Everything, Dean.”

Dean looks at Castiel. It hasn’t hit him, truly, until now, how old Castiel is. He is millennia old; he’s watched the birth of the stars, the start of life, the explosion of thousands and thousands of galaxies. He has watched their sun form and their species evolve and their civilizations grow, watched the Greek build temples and the Romans fall and Egyptian pharaohs reign, Chinese dynasties rise, the British Empire march.

And yet—and yet, here he is, human, dancing with Dean Winchester to a Hozier song, twirling as the world spins around them and the angels fly upstairs and the demons crawl from Hell, watching Dean’s eyes as they slow to a stop. Here he is.

They’re not _real people_ , not at all, and Dean loves Castiel all the more for it.

“Dean—”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“—I love you.”

Dean kisses Cas one more time, firm and sweet. He winds both their hands together; they fill in each other’s empty spaces, the gaps between each other’s fingers. The pieces they didn’t know they were missing. The music swells to a soft crescendo, drifting through the bunker, out into the frozen chill of the morning; past the three occupied bedrooms: Sam, sprawled across the bed; Kevin, curled into his mother’s side; Charlie, with Dorothy, finally back from Oz. Through the kitchen, where Dean has already laid out breakfast; into the garage, sweeping through the Impala. She’s not their home anymore, not quite—not their only home, at any rate. The strings of a guitar—so different from the rock and roll that used to float out her windows—fill her empty seats with music.

And finally, the music soars in the war room of the bunker, where Dean and Cas are dancing once again, their hands entwined and foreheads resting together, their eyes closed.

If Dean whispers “I love you” into Castiel’s ear while they dance; if he whispers it a thousand times more into his ear that day, and that week, and that year, and for years to come, that’s for Castiel to know.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired, of course, by [Like Real People Do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrleydRwWms), by Hozier. It's a lovely song. I listened to it on repeat while writing this disgustingly fluffy, indulgent fic.
> 
> Also, apparently, I have a strange fascination with Cas's age. Huh.


End file.
